The boy from the Seam
by All-lost-things
Summary: Mr Mellark and Mrs Everdeen are childhood friends, and one day they're walking past the seam when they hear a voice coming from the forest.


They walked down the familiar route past the Seam; all four feet trudging the exact same pattern as they did every day when they walked home from their school to the richer, merchant parts of town. He had always hated walking past the Seam and seeing all the hungry faces of the children who were too young to go to school but already knew what hunger was, what pain felt like, what starvation could do. She made it better of course, just as she always did, with her easy smile and infectious laugh that made his own bubble up inside of him and spill out, no matter how upset he was. He glanced sideways and watched her for a moment, walking lightly down the stony path and her pale golden hair and rosy skin standing out amongst the grey buildings and dusty streets that surrounded them. He watched her ponytail swinging side to side as she walked just in front of him and was as usual struck with a yearning to reach out and grab her hand, to wrap his fingers, strong from all the bakery work, around her own slender ones. Loads of their friends were couples, but the two of them had been best friends for as long as he could remember, and he couldn't help feeling a dose of that stupid fear that reminded him of everything that was at stake.

Just as they reached the end of the path, almost out of the Seam with its blackened buildings and scrubbed wooden porches and tiny children playing in the dirt, the air was suddenly filled with a sound, a voice singing, high and clear and rich.

Her face lit up suddenly. "It's back!"

They had heard the voice a few times before, usually around this time and always just as they were leaving the Seam. It was an incredible voice, and she was obsessed with finding out who it belonged to. He listened carefully this time, to see if it was true; after the last time they had heard it, she had sworn that even the birds fell silent and listened.

It was true, he realised. He listened carefully and while moments before that had been a riot of birdsong coming from the forest, now there was not a sound. As he turned to look, to see if maybe the birds had taken flight, he saw him: a boy around their age, clearly from the Seam with his curled dark hair and grey eyes. He was tall and skinny, as they all were, and he had smudges of dirt along his tanned skin, and he suddenly remembered seeing him at school, sat with the other Seam kids, laughing quietly but spending most lessons in silence.

The other boy's mouth was open, and it took a moment to realise that that was where the voice was coming from.

He turned to tell her but she had already noticed and was smiling at the boy with the special smile he had seen only a few times, the one that lit her up entire face until she seemed to emit a kind of glow. She walked forwards, ponytail still swinging, and the boy stopped singing and grinned back, his eyes crinkling as he swept a dirty hand over his hair.

"Wow" she gushed, and he had never heard her sound like that before, "you sing so beautifully. You know, I've heard you a few times before but I've never seen you-"

"I came home early today" said the other boy, his grin still plastered across his face – well why wouldn't it be, when he was lucky enough to be talking to her with the little strands of hair that had escaped from her ponytail curling around her face, her cheeks flushed and her blue eyes bright, wearing a pretty blue dress with a ribbon round it.

"You go to our school, don't you?"

"Yes I do, but I leave at lunchtime on a Friday, I've got things I have to do. Y'all are from the merchant part of town, aren't you?"

And for the first time the Seam boy acknowledged the other boy, the one who stood a little while behind her with his shoulders squared and his teeth gritted as he watched them.

"Yes we are" she answered, still smiling.

"I thought so. You're too pretty and far too clean to be from the Seam." And then he winked at her whilst flashing another smile, and her cheeks flushed further still.


End file.
